On a Long Enough Time Line
by Rinkinkirs
Summary: His fingers looked old and worn next to Edward's smooth hands. Promises of forever refused to keep their hold, and he found himself fading away, ever so slowly, as if time would make things better. Edward/Jacob.


**Notes:** I've never been particularly fond of Edward/Jacob, so it's a bit odd to find myself writing it. I just had an idea that wouldn't let go. Not beta'd, since Tyan seems to have disappeared for a bit, so feel free to point at my mistakes. I haven't written much in a while, so there could be quite a few.

**Summary:** "His fingers looked old and worn next to Edward's smooth hands. Promises of forever refused to keep their hold, and he found himself fading away, ever so slowly, as if time would make things better."

**Warnings:** Slash, but that's not the focal point. Angst, if a little... detached. Jacob grows old. Character death. Think I got everything.

* * *

**On a Long Enough Time Line**

Jacob never meant to stop shifting. There just hadn't been a need for it, when they moved away, and when his health failed, it just didn't come to mind, though he was sure Edward had thought of it. All of a sudden, he noticed that there were lines of age on his face; he ate less, had to work out more to keep his muscle mass intact, and there was a layer of flesh on his stomach that couldn't be blamed on strength.

Edward still looked like a seventeen-year-old heart breaker, young and handsome in his masculine beauty, but Jacob looked closer to thirty than twenty. The strange, disapproving looks they accumulated when walking down the street suddenly made a whole lot of sense. With their obvious differences in appearance, their relationship couldn't be dismissed as blood relation, and holding hands weren't exactly indicative of adoption, either. And wasn't _that_ a disturbing thought: he looked old enough to be Edward's father, and Edward would never look any older.

He'd like to think that they hadn't had many problems in their years together. There was the Bella obstacle (still a tender subject, for both of them); but apart from that, he liked to think that they had both been happy. With tempers like theirs, arguments were unavoidable – Jacob constantly got annoyed by Edward's possessiveness, and Edward was moody like a premenstrual girl at the best of times – but they'd always been _happy_ together. And now, with no way Edward could pass as more than seventeen, Jacob could risk incarceration. If Edward's fake papers were discovered, he would be locked up, too. And that was unthinkable.

"Jacob."

_Speak of the devil_, he thought, turning around.

"Which of us would that be?" Edward said, smile a little too strained to look friendly.

"The fact that you even have to ask answers the question," Jacob said, bringing a hand up to cup Edward's chin. Edward bent down reluctantly, but his smile looked a bit more genuine when Jacob kissed his cheek.

He knew Edward had heard what he was thinking about. It didn't make his worry abate, merely increase it.

"Wanna go out for dinner?" Jacob muttered. Edward rolled his eyes, but Jacob interrupted the upcoming diatribe. "I _know_, you man eater. But some of us get hungry for _real_ food, you know."

Not that Jacob had eaten what he once called "real food" for ages, considering his diet.

*

"There have been rumours around town," Edward admitted that night. "About us."

Jacob sighed, drawing Edward closer. He didn't know if Edward needed the reassurance, but he certainly did. "What do they say?"

"Mostly, we're runaways. Some say we're having an illicit affair, some say we ran away to be married. Others just speculate, wondering whether you're my friend's father falling in love with me, crap like that." A pause. "The old ladies from church pray for my immortal soul."

They shared a short laugh, but Jacob couldn't help the tendrils of apprehension sneaking into his stomach.

Edward put a hand on his arm and squeezed. "It'll be all right, Jacob. I promise."

Jacob smiled. No matter their appearances, Edward was still the eldest by far. He fell asleep with relief rushing through his veins, trusting Edward to do what was best, once more. And if he was sometimes wrong, well, his intentions were always good. When the shit hit the fan, which it would, he'd have to remind himself of that.

*

It had come out of nowhere, when Jacob was sixty-five years old and looking healthy as ever, as if he'd just turned twenty. Being able to shift might have given him a monstrous metabolism – but it had not given him the ability to handle a lifetime of fast-food. His superhuman wolf genes could handle anything a vampire could throw, but not clogged arteries. Talk about irony. After that, it was strict diets with lots of vitamins, training programs, moving to some obscure town so he could shift to his wolf form regularly, living a painfully healthy life while Edward snarked about "getting what he'd earned by eating food dripping with fat". He knew it was concern speaking – and while it stung, Edward was right, no matter how much his pride protested.

After his bout of illness, shifting was a painful experience. It was easier not to think of it, and then he'd just forgotten. Now, his fingers looked old and worn next to Edward's smooth hands.

"Just start shifting again," Edward muttered into his ear one night. "Once a week should be enough."

The thing about human bodies was that they weren't supposed to change shape regularly. It hurt like a bitch, and made him incapacitated for days, which messed up his training regimen.

"I'm dying," he told Edward while they were watching the stars, lying in their tiny garden. It was nearing midnight. Jacob was warm – Edward and the night were cold as ever.

Edward didn't answer. Instead, he curled up on his side and refused to speak for hours.

*

Edward Jones had just turned twenty, and it was time to move. Jacob was tired. He loved Edward with everything he was, but he didn't have much left to offer. A wrinkled face, spidery fingers, yellowed nails. They went to the big cities now, where people wouldn't notice them as quickly. Not that they didn't get a lot of looks: people just didn't care.

Jacob Miner, a man of thirty-eight years, and the young Edward Hawson ended up in a dirty old industrial town that had been abandoned by anything resembling morals.

Jacob's years of feeling thirty were far gone. His joints protested when he jogged up the stairs to their apartment, and even as he looked to be in his late thirties, he felt every one of his hundred-odd years. Living felt more like surviving, these days.

Jacob had to make choice, soon, if Edward wouldn't. But he could indulge him, if only for a little while longer.

A few hours later, he noticed that all sharp objects were gone from their apartment.

"Edward," Jacob said. He was studiously ignored. "I'm not going to do anything unless we've talked about it."

"We can stay here." Edward stood, eyes set with feverish intensity. "No one will give a damn."

Jacob shook his head, brushing a weary hand through his thinning hair. "And how long until people wants to research whatever you're drinking to stay like this?" he demanded.

"_I_ don't give a damn!" Edward hissed, suddenly up close. His eyes were dark windows to a soul he once loved. "No... Don't think that." Edward brought a hand up to his cheek, skin heartbreakingly soft against his own. "Never think that. I love you, and you love me. _Always_. Promise."

Jacob closed his eyes and turned his head, kissing Edward's palm. "I promise," he whispered.

If Edward heard his internal doubt, he refused to listen.

*

Jacob remembered being terrified of eternity when he was little. It seemed a hundred years ago – but it was longer than that, he knew. He'd lost count of his years, having memorised dozens of birth dates and last names through the last century. When he was young, hundred years seemed nothing but a distant point in time that would never ever come.

He'd learned. Eternity did nothing but destroy people. He knew Carlisle was still out there, determined to atone for his sins in the only way he thought he could. Perhaps the Snatchers had gotten him, like they'd taken Esme. Sometimes, he wished they'd find him. Waiting for his death hadn't been easy on Edward – soft, indestructible Edward, frozen in time until he was broken.

There was only so much he could survive without shifting.

He insisted on going back to Washington. _Or I won't love you anymore_, his mind whispered to Edward.

They were all dead. Houses had been torn down and rebuilt. A couple of generations had gone by, but it still hurt to see his father's grave.

"I need some time alone," Jacob said. "You could go hunt, if you want. I know it's been a while. Just not on the reservation."

Edward hesitated. Jacob made himself think happy thoughts, remembering that time they'd stayed up all night to watch a Star Wars marathon, and all the times Edward had smiled for him, that tiny, genuine quirk of lips that was just for him.

Edward's lips had barely touched his before they were gone.

Forks was green as ever. The cliffs were taller than he remembered, and there were rocks at the bottom, if you went a bit further out.

He brought out a worn dagger and sat on the precipice.

"You won't," Edward said.

Jacob didn't look at him.

"I'm not stupid," Edward said. "A bit out of my mind, perhaps. But not stupid."

"I know," Jacob said wryly. He sighed, looking up. The sun was setting. "I love you, you know."

"I know."

"It doesn't help much," Jacob said, knowing that he was giving in.

Then, Edward was by his side again, making things a tiny bit better. "I know I'm selfish," Edward whispered, eyes dark as coal. He looked like he did, all those years ago. "Just a little while longer. That's all I ask."

_That's all you ever asked_, Jacob thought. _But now there's never enough_.

Walking towards their car, he knew there wouldn't be another visit to Washington. There was nothing left but bad memories and rain.

*

Eleanor Paschendale strolled through the sunlit graveyard, smiling brightly at one of her old friends as she passed the small water fountain. She was visiting her late husband's grave (late as of twenty years), and she'd brought one of those nifty bushes that he'd loved, no matter how much he claimed to despise gardening.

"Hello, there," she greeted him cheerily, patting the grey stone. The small flower bed was well cared for, despite being at the end of a row at the far side from the road. It was a long walk with her cranky hips, but well worth it. "Thought I'd forgotten you, eh? Well, think again. It's such a pretty day – makes me of that time you dropped me in the ocean." She leaned closer. "That was _cold_, you old bastard!" Eleanor supported herself on her cane, knees and back protesting as she bent down to cut off a few withered flowers, and something a few rows forward caught her eye.

She stood gingerly and walked over, frowning as she stepped in front of the fresh patch of dirt. There was still no grass on the new grave, and it had a stone so beautiful that she would have had to use all her life savings on it, and perhaps more.

"Wouldn't that be something, Harold?" she muttered, peering back at her husband's stone. "Well, bought yours with love, I did. You better be grateful."

The new stone wasn't gilded, but letters and figures were embedded in the surface, making a wonderful sunken-relief of a wolf gazing up at the moon.

_Jacob Black_

_June 20, 2152_

_If only time had stopped, just a little while longer_

There was a small patch of flourishing Forget-me-nots below the words.

"Don't we all wish," Eleanor muttered to herself, shaking her head. "You better be waiting for me up there, Harold!"

When she walked over to her husband's resting place, she couldn't help looking over her shoulder. "What do we say to that, Harold?" she said. "Rich people in this old graveyard, huh?" She shook her head again. "Thought they'd all move away from a place like this. Ain't nothing up here but rain, is there?"

Eleanor huffed, bumping her cane against the stone.

"No hide and seek next time, all right?" As if she was going to admit to her failing memory. "Well, I'll see you later, old man."

She walked slowly towards the exit, sighing wryly as she patted her pockets. "Now, where did I put that damned phone..."

A hundred yards away, beneath heavy, green branches, a young man stood like a lighthouse, watching over the rows of dead. His clothes were faded and torn, his eyes dark.

There wasn't a hint of life in him.

*

Every day, there would be a new red rose in front of the carved stone, and the Forget-me-nots were well cared for.

Decades later, they would still speak of the ghost that haunted Jacob Black's grave in Forks' old graveyard. And if people sometimes died there in the night, it would only serve to preserve the mystery.

* * *

**Notes: **

"_On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero._"

From _Fight Club_, by Chuck Palahniuk. It's stuck to my perception of eternity ever since I heard it.


End file.
